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DESCRIPTIVE READING 



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ARIZONA, CLIFF R0INS 



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ILLUSTRATED BY TWELVE LANTERN 
SLIDES 



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WILLIAM H. RAU 

PHILADELPHIA 
1890 



Copyright, i8go, by William H. Rau, 






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ILLUSTRATIONS. 



1. Grand Canon of the Colorado. 

2. Colorado River in the Canon. 

3. Canon, Grand Gulch. 

4. San Xavier del Bac, Tucson. 

5. Geronimo, Apache War Chief. 

6. Apache Squaw and Cradle. 

7. The Town of Moqui. 

8. Moqui Town — Shung-A-Paw-Wee. 

9. House of the Captain, Shung-A-Paw-Wee. 

10. Cliff Ruins on the Rio San Juan. 

11. Ruin, Cave Town Canon, Rio de Chelley. 

12. Cave Town Canon, Rio de Chelley. 



ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 



At the time when the western boundary of the 
southern portion of our Republic was declared by the 
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to be the Rio Grande, 
there lay south of the territory of New Mexico, a 
strip of what was supposed to be an arid, worthless 
country, nearly if not quite destitute of water, inter- 
sected by a number of ranges of mountains and vast 
deserts, inhabited chiefly by Indians, and utterly use- 
less for any practical purpose that could be imagined. 
This tract was acquired by purchase from the Mexi- 
can government in 1853, and for it the United States 
paid the sum of ten millions of dollars. The com- 
missioners who made the treaty were greatly surprised 
and perplexed at the manifest reluctance of Mexico to 
part with this strip of apparently worthless land ; and 
those few Americans who took any interest in the 
acts of the commissioners, were equally perplexed to 
know what the United States proposed to do with 
the purchase. 

Not one of our people then realized or imagined 
that by this purchase the United States had acquired 
a large portion of the identical country for which 
Cortez imperilled the possession of an empire; for 
which Coronado's expedition was fitted out ; for which 
De Soto so long sought but never found ; the land of 
which the Spanish poets had for centuries sung, and 

(731) 



73 2 ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 

for which kings had so long sighed, the country that 
for three hundred years had yielded by far the greater 
portion of the immense treasury that filled the coffers 
of Spain. Containing the richest mines in the world, 
the vast quantities of precious metal found there had 
given to the territory its present name — Arizona, sil- 
ver bearing. 

Arizona covers a broad space, and has all sorts of 
climate, from the burning sands of the lower Gila, the 
hottest place in the United States, to the never-melting 
snow on its northern Sierras. Along the New Mexi- 
can border stretches an elevated forested region 
where water is plentiful and much agricultural land 
exists, and near her limits is some of the most wild 
and beautiful scenery in the world. 

1. Graiia Canon of the Colorado. — None of the 
works of Nature on the American Continent, where 
many things are done by her upon a scale of grandeur 
elsewhere unknown, approach in magnificence the won- 
ders of the canons of the Colorado. In southwestern 
Utah the Grand and Green unite in a pathway shad- 
owed by walls a rriile high,- and form the Rio Colora- 
do, — the great Red River which had been the wonder 
of the world. Here is a canon or a series of closely 
connected canons, a thousand miles in length, bound- 
ed by vertical escarpments in some places 6000 feet 
high. The top of these cliffs is the level of the gen- 
eral plateau ; the bed of the river has sunk into the 
plain, cutting the narrow channel straight down. Just 
above the mouth of the Colorado Chiquito is a single 
canon sixty-five miles long ; andfromjust below that 
river gorge the Colorado's tortuous chasm stretches 



ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. " 733 

on again two hundred and seventeen miles without a 
break. All the scenic features of the canon are on a 
gigantic scale, strange and weird. The Grand Canon, 
the most profound chasm known on the globe, is for 
a distance of over two hundred miles, at no point less 
than four thousand feet deep. The head of the Grand 
canon is in the northeastern part of Arizona, and it 
runs out in the northwestern part. Its general course 
is westly, but it makes two great bends to the south. 
There are in the canon no perpendicular cliffs more 
than three thousand feet in height. At that elevation 
from the river the sides slope back. In many places 
it is possible to find gorges or side canons, cutting 
down through the upper cliffs, by which it is possible 
to approach to the edge of the wall which rises per- 
pendicularly from the river. 

2, Colorado River in the Canon. — At various 
places the chasm is cleft through the primal granite 
rock to the depth of twenty-eight hundred feet. In 
those parts of the canon the chasm is narrow, the 
walls rugged, broken and precipitous, and the naviga- 
tion of the river exceedingly dangerous. Following 
a transverse valley, we may pass through the upper 
line of cliffs to the edge of a chasm cut in red sand- 
stone and vermilion colored limestone. Making our 
way to the edge of the precipice, welook down direct- 
ly upon the river. Those who have passed through 
the canon, inform us that the river below is a raging 
torrent ; and yet it looks from the top of the cliff like 
a small, smooth, sluggish stream. The view looking 
up the canon is magnificent and beautiful beyond the 
most extravagant conception of the imagination. 



734 ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 

The eye looks for miles through what appears like a 
narrow valley formed by the upper line of cliffs. The 
many colored rocks project in vast headlands, wrought 
into beautiful but gigantic architectural forms. Within 
an hour of the time of sunset the effect is strangely 
weird and dazzling. Every moment until the light is 
gone, the scene shifts, as one monumental pile passes 
into shade, and another, before unobserved, into light. 

3. Canon, Grand Gulch. — But most beautiful is 
this wonderful canon where the cool, dark green foli- 
age is contrasted with the warm and tender rose hues 
of the cliffs. The splendor of coloring no one can 
describe ; and below is the emerald river. 

On massive cliff walls Nature's hand, 
Has turned time's sun-worn pages, 
In faces carved and figures hewn 
We trace the work of ages. 

While watching the sides of these grand walls, list- 
ening to the confused mutterings of the restless waters, 
whose continual flow through geologic ages have so 
seldom awakened a sound. beyond their own echoes, — 
comes the thought that the time necessary for the cre- 
ation, full development and extinction of one single 
animal race, falls into insignificance in comparison 
with the eras that have passed while this erosive 
agent of nature was stealing slowly down to its pres- 
ent bed. 

4, San Xavier del Bac, Tucson.— Tucson has great 
antiquity ; it was founded by one of the early Spanish 
expeditions that came up the Santa Cruz valley in 



ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 735 

quest of the reputed treasures of the Aztecs in the 
fabled ''land of Cibola." In the vicinity is one of the 
loveliest possible historic remains, the old mission 
church of San Xaxier del Bac. It is not surpassed 
either in Mexico or out of it for quaintness, the qual- 
ities of form and color, and the gentle s'entiment of 
melancholy that appeal to the artistic sense. Old 
Father Time has trodden with heavy steps on the 
green wooden balconies in front, broken out the floors, 
and left parts of them dangling free. The original 
sweet-toned bronze bells still hang in one of the tow- 
ers The space between the towers, terminating in 
a scrolled gable, is enriched with escutcheons and 
rampant lions, wreathed in foliage. Niches hold gro- 
tesque broken statues, and complicated pilasters flank 
the entrance doorway, the whole formed in stucco 
upon a basis of moulded brick. It is roofed with 
numerous simple domes and half-domes. The date 
has disappeared from the facade, but it is believed to 
be about 1 768, and the present edifice was built on the 
ruins of a former one, going back to 1654. 

The interior is frescoed with angels and evangelists, 
and the chancel walls are almost covered with gilding, 
but stained and battered. All within is broad medi- 
aeval richness and obscurity. All without is broad 
sunshine falling upon the peaceful village. A few old 
men trudge about, concerning themselves with their 
bake ovens and some water jars and strings of dried 
squashes ; and women pass by with tall loads of hay 
and other produce carried in a hamper of sticks and 
netting on their backs. Nobody concerns himself 
about visitors except a foolishly smiling boy who has 
brought us the key. 



73^ ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 

5. Geronimo, Apache War Chief. — The far- 
famed war chief of the Apaches is not particularly 
handsome, his face having the look of a wrinkled old 
woman. But he is not an old woman, not by any 
manner of means. It would be a safe statement to 
say that were he put in the field with weapons of, his 
choice, few men with the same weapons could be 
found to cope with him. Put him on a horse with 
one hour's start, and it would be a difficult task for a 
regiment of cavalry to bring him back. The Apaches 
are a tribe of Indians inured to hardship from their 
infancy. Small in stature, almost black in color, 
spare and tough ; asking no quarter and showing no 
mercy, they have long been — and the remnants are 
yet — the terrors of the plains of the far southwest. 
The Apache warrior can travel sixty miles without 
water, and his fleshless body is baked so hard that the 
blistering rays of the sun do not affect him. He 
never fights in the open, but can conceal himself be- 
hind a shrub three inches high, flattened out on the 
ground like a snake, and fire with deadly aim without 
more than raising his head. Even the old frontiers- 
man is no match for him. 

The treatment of the Apaches by the government 
it is not our place to criticise, sufficient to say that 
this man Geronimo, utterly worthless to himself or 
anyone else, has for years been at the head of a band 
of bloodthirsty murderers that have dealt death and 
desolation on every side, in spite of the efforts of the 
troops of this country and Mexico. 

6. Apache Squaw and Cradle.^-The Apache wo- 
men are particularly ugly, fat, and dirty, and we look 



ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 737 

in vain for the beautiful squaws so graphically por- 
trayed by the novelists. Their hair hangs unkempt 
around them, and their principal clothing consists in 
remnants of dirty old blankets ; the expression on their 
faces is cruel and brutal, a look of cunning pervading 
each countenance. It is almost impossible to believe 
that the bright-eyed boy before us is one of this 
bloodthirsty tribe. The Indian idea of a cradle is 
very different from that of our gentle mothers in this 
age of enlightenment ; nor is the difference in appear- 
ance any greater than the difference in the child's 
training. When one of our white babies starts in to 
make a row he generally succeeds; at night in his cradle 
so soft and warm and comfortable, he thinks that other 
people are asleep, a luxury he does not propose to 
permit, and accordingly he proceeds to awake every- 
one within sound of his voice. What does mamma 
do? Makes a light, rocks her little darling, walks 
with it, talks to it, and makes an idiot of herself gen- 
erally. Transfer your view to a night in the far West 
in an Apache camp. Let young Mr. *' Man-with- 
the-bright-eyes " start up one wail, and the mother's 
hand is promptly pressed over its mouth, and the 
howl is effectually silenced. The baby can't kick, for 
he has been packed in his cradle ; — packed is the word^ 
for when he has been poked into the basket-like cocoon, 
rammed down like a wad in a gun, and strapped in, 
there is not much chance to kick. In daytime he is hung 
up like a dried cod fish to a convenient tree, and baby 
can tliink what he pleases, but there he stays, and 
quietly, too ; or perhaps he endures a long weary 
march, strapped to his mother's back, shaded by a 
little basket-like construction, he amuses himself 



7.>.8 ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 

with that delightful pastime of all babies, — sucking 
his thumb. 

7. The Town of Moqui. — The Moqui's country- 
lies to the north and west of the San Francisco Moun- 
tain. It is an arid, barren country, deeply eroded by 
floods, and largely formed of steep mesas, volcanic 
peaks, and rocky canons, with a few fertile valleys 
interspersed among them. Their villages, of which 
there are seven, are built upon the very edge of some 
of the steepest of the rocky mesas, in so singular a 
manner that, at a little distance it is impossible for a 
stranger to distinguish them from the rocks, of which 
they appear to form a part. The first three of these 
towns are built upon a bluff of solid rock, about three 
hundred feet high, and one hundred and fifty feet in 
width, and are reached by steep paths and by steps 
cut into the rock in such a manner that they can only 
be approached by persons on foot. The houses are 
built of stone, are generally two stories high, and are 
laid in a mortar made of mud, which is brought from 
the valleys below upon the backs of men, there being 
no soil whatever upon the rock. Entrance to the 
houses is by ladders, there being no doors or windows 
in the lower stories. Our picture shows us Moqui, 
one of th : principal towns, which is called after the 
name of the tribe. 

8. Moqui Town -Sliung--a-Paw- Wee. — The town 
before us rejoices in the euphonious Indian title, 
" Shung a-Paw-Wee," and is another of the Moqui 
villages. All the towns or villages have large water- 
tanks or reservoirs, constructed upon the rock, lined 



ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 739 

with masonry ; they are generally five or six feet in 
depth, and are "ised for collecting and holding rain 
water. Below each of these large tanks are smaller 
ones similarly constructed, and connected with those 
above by means of a pipe, through which water is 
conducted for the use of their stock. The stock con- 
sists entirely of sheep and goats, which are driven 
each day to pasture, the nearest grass being six miles 
away. 

They never plough or irrigate their lands, depend- 
ing entirely upon the natural fall of rain ; their only 
agricultural implement is a kind of hoe, with this 
they plant corn, beans, onions, melons, pumpkins, 
cotton, and a species of tobacco-plant in the valleys 
around them. 

One very singular fact in connection with the 
Moquis is deserving of especial mention : the people 
of the principal settlement, Harro, although living 
within two hundred yards of another large village, 
speak an. entirely different language from those of the 
remaining six villages, and seem to have preserved 
their manners and customs intact, as well as their 
language, for centuries. And while the people of 
Harro understand and can converse in the language 
spoken by the people of the other villages, the in- 
habitants of the other villages can neither understand 
nor converse in the language spoken by the people of 
Harro. 

9. House of the Captain, Slimig'-a-Paw-Wee. 

— The population of the Moqui's villages numbers,, 
it is supposed, something over six thousand. Their 
government is an hereditary one, not necessarily 



74° ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS. 

descending from father to son, however, as any blood 
relation may be selected as determined by the choice 
of the people. Before us is the house of the Captain, 
or Cacique, at Shung-a-Paw-Wee. It is built in the 
usual terrace style, being strongly constructed of 
stone, and covered with a kind of stucco, made of mud 
and gravel. The only means of entrance is by a 
ladder ; and when all are in at night and the ladder 
drawn up, they are secure against the world. A 
Moqui village is a place of which one may well say, 
"Every man's house is his castle." Each house has 
its patron saint, represented by an ugly little Aztec 
image, made of wood or clay, gaudily painted and 
gorgeously decorated with feathers. These images 
are suspended by a string from the rafters of the 
houses, and are supposed to exert a great influence 
for weal or woe. 

Every village has a council chamber under ground, 
where the people are wont to congregate, to sit and 
smoke, and talk over the affairs of the nation. The 
only light or air is obtained from a scuttle in the roof, 
which also serves as a door. 

No description of the Moquis would be complete 
without mention of their marriage customs. The 
proposal of marriage always emanates from the fair 
damsel herself, who, after selecting the happy youth, 
informs her father of her choice, and he forthwith 
proposes to the father of the lucky swain, who is 
never known to refuse to sanction the choice. The 
preliminaries being thus happily arranged, the young 
man is required to present his bride with two pairs of 
moccasins, two pairs of fine blankets, two mattresses, 
and two sashes. The young woman, in her turn, is 



ARIZONA, CLIFF RUINS, 741 

obliged to furnish a goodly store of eatables cooked 
by herself, as a proof that she is capable of making 
home attractive. Then the marriage is celebrated 
with dancing and feasting. 

10. Cliff Ruins on the Rio San Juan. — In many 
parts of Arizona are found the rums of the homes of 
the Cliff Dwellers ; ruins which excite our wonder 
and admiration, and at the same time fill us with sad- 
ness, for these mute sentinels silently point to a civili- 
zation centuries old, which has not even the poor con- 
solation of a history to record its rise and fall. 

On the Rio San Jaun are very extensive ruins. 
Situated on a ledge at the foot of a precipitous cliff is 
an immense structure, built of pieces of hard, fine- 
grained, compact, gray sandstone — a material quite 
unknown in the present architecture of the region — 
to which age and the atmosphere have imparted a 
reddish tint. The layers or slabs are not thicker than 
three inches, and sometimes as thin as one-fourth of 
an inch. The masonry displays a combination of 
science and art, which can only be referred to a 
higher state of civilization and refinement than is to 
be found in the works of either the Mexicans or the 
Pueblos of to-day. So beautiful, dimJnutive, and 
true are the details of -the structure, as to give them 
at a little distance the appearance of a magnificent 
piece of mosaic work. The filling and backing of 
the walls is done in rubble masonry, the mortar, how- 
ever, showing no indications of the presence of lime. 
Their thickness at the base is a little more than three 
feet, while higher up it is less, diminishing by retreat- 
ij^g jogs on the inside from bottom to top. From the 



742 ARIZONA,. CLIFF RUINS. 

immense size of this ruin it was probably the dvveUing- 
place of a whole community. 

11. Ruin, Cave Towu Canon, Rio de Chelley. — On 

the Rio de Chelley are many of the remains and inter- 
esting relics of this earliest civilization in America. 
Located on a slanting ledge of rock, overhung by 
huge chiffs, from the valley below it is almost imposs- 
ible to distinguish them. They seem quite inaccessi- 
ble, and can be reached only by a staircase out in the 
face of the cliff. The structures rise several stories 
in height. The system of flooring was unhewn beams 
about six inches in diameter, from which the bark 
had been carefully removed ; they were laid trans- 
versely from w^all to wall, small peeled sticks about 
one inch in diameter, being laid across them; these 
were covered with grass, which with a layer of mud 
mortar, furnished the floor. These beams show no 
sign of saw or axe, but bear the marks of having been 
hacked off by some very imperfect implement. 

Many questions suggest themselves, not one of 
which we can answer satisfactorily. What could 
have induced these people to seek so lofty and inac- 
cessible a site? How did they procure water? From 
■ whence came the large quantity of broken pottery 
with which the ground is covered in all these ruins ? 

*' These castled cliffs they made their dwelling, 
They lived and loved, they fought and fell, 
No faint, far voice comes to us telling 
More than these crumbling walls can tell. 
They lived their life, their fate fulfilling. 
Then drew their last faint, faltering breath." 



ARIZONA, CLIFF RUIKS. 743 

12. Cave Town Canon, Kio cle Clielley. — It is evi- 
dent that this region was once densely populated. 
Our picture shows us how, without investigation it 
is very easy to pass the ruins by unnoticed, since their 
elevated positions and ruinous condition, render them 
ahi^ost invisible to the passing traveler. The inhabi- 
tants of these rock houses appear only to have con- 
sidered tjie capacities of their dwellings for defense, 
yet the perils of life due to location alone must have 
been considerable. 

There is no trace of metal in any of the ruins, and 
it is evident that the inhabitants were acquainted with 
the nse of stone implements only, as was the case 
with the builders of the cities of Central America. 
Some explorers are of the opinion that these people 
were a remnant of the Aztec race ; others say that 
they are undoubtedly of Toltec origin. Certain it is 
that these cave dwellings were the work of a great 
people, an intelligent nation, whose civilzation was 
far superior to that of the tribes in the neighborhood. 
There they stand, magnificent, though decaying mon- 
uments of the energy, skill and civilization of a 
mighty people who flourished but a few hundred years 
since, yet have now no history, save the crumbling 
evidences of their works to tell of their rise and fall. 



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